Herb Stuffing with Cranberries

Confession: I've never made stuffing before...ever! I decided to make the following recipe b/c I had all the ingredients already (I had planned on making stuffing for Thanksgiving so I had a few boxes, but then my brother in law wanted to put the stuffing in the turkey so I chose another side to bring). Anyway, it's from Simply Made with Love: Pampered Chef's Savory Herbed Stuffing. She has lots of delicious recipes that I want to try. So far I have made her Crockpot Creamy Chicken & Wild Rice Soup and it was yummy - although mine was more of a casserole. I did make a few changes to the stuffing recipe. Here's my version:

Ingredients:

1 (6 oz) box of herbed stuffing mix

4 large stalks of celery, diced

2 small onions, diced

1 cup dried cranberries (I used pomegranate flavored b/c I had a couple bags for the kids' s snack and used a lot more cranberries than what the original recipe called for b/c the kids LOVE it)

1 (14.5 oz) can of chicken broth

~ 3 Tbsp of butter

~ 1 Tbsp of dried parsley

2 pinches of Italian seasoning

1 pinch of dried Oregano

black pepper

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Meanwhile melt butter in pan over medium heat. Saute onions and celery until it is crisp-tender. About 4-5 minutes.

2. Pour stuffing mix, cranberries, and herbs in a large bowl.

3. Add veggie mix and broth to stuffing mixture until well incorporated and stuffing is moistened. As you can see in the pic below, I added a little more cranberries (total ~ 1 cup)!

4. Pour into baking dish. Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes. *** Mine differed a bit b/c hubby apparently used up the last of the foil. Fortunately the dish I used had a cover so I used that. ***

5. Remove foil and bake uncovered for another 15-20 minutes until stuffing is golden brown. *** I did not do this step right away. I did steps 1-4 while the kids ate lunch. I popped the stuffing back in the oven after I baked the chicken (see recipe for baked chicken leg quarters. FYI: I lowered the heat down to 350 when I put the stuffing in). The stuffing heated through and browned while the chicken rested and cooled a bit. ***

I ate an early dinner since I had to work. Avery of course came running to me, demanding: "bite" and opening her mouth. She gobbled up everything! I offered the stuffing to Parker and he said "no thank you" until I told him it had cranberries. He had quite a few bites of everything too. Apparently it was a huge hit at dinner. Kevin's reaction when I asked him how dinner went: "I tore it up. Avery tore it up. Parker kept getting up and down from his chair, but ate everything too!". Kevin said he really liked the stuffing. It's pretty moist, has a tiny bit of crunch from the celery, and the sweetness from the cranberries. The stuffing will def be added as one of our favorite side dishes!